by Will Taylor
“Where . . . ?” I whispered, feeling around, my hands and knees and elbows bumping everywhere I turned. “How am I supposed to—”
“Shhh!” hissed Charlene. “Quit moving or you’ll knock them over.”
Even as she said it, I felt a rogue cantaloupe bounce against my shoulder. I fumbled it back into the pile, then scooched around until I was pressed against the dirt wall. It was the exact opposite of comfortable, but at least we were out of sight.
“Told you it was a false lead, Ron,” said a voice suddenly, so close to our hiding place I jumped, scratching my back on a root. “Just some local birdlife, like I said.”
“Didn’t sound like a bird,” said another voice, which I guessed was Ron, my not-a-bird whistling buddy. “That whistle sounded human to me. A little kid, maybe.”
I bristled in the darkness. I was twelve and a half years old. I was not little.
“Yeah, sure,” said another, deeper voice. “You were going to come out here and find the missing girl on your very first sweep of the woods, thirty yards from camp. Right.”
There was some scattered chuckling. Charlene shifted slightly in the cantaloupey darkness.
“I wish you had, though,” a familiar voice said. It was the nice lady officer who’d been there when I read Abby’s letter. “We’ve found no clues at all, and we’ve got, what, just over twenty-four hours? That about right, Officer Fields?”
“Just about. If we don’t find this girl by then, it’s goodbye, Camp Cantaloupe.”
“Closed down?”
“Closed down. For good.”
“Shame.”
Charlene’s gasp was as loud as mine, but she was smart enough not to whap frantically at the air, catching the precarious pile of produce with her hand. I wasn’t.
In my experience disasters usually went down in super . . . slow . . . motion. But not this time. My friend the rogue cantaloupe clonked out of its spot, bounced off my arm, and went rolling merrily out into the open, crashing through the ferns as it went.
“What was that?” said Ron sharply. “Over there!” The footsteps started up again.
Charlene made a tiny noise in her throat. If getting caught on our own in the woods was bad, getting caught hiding in a cave full of stolen cantaloupes was going to be a scandal. Thank Samson’s snagglepaw the rest of the pile was holding. For now.
The footsteps crunched closer and closer through the undergrowth, then stopped abruptly.
“What the—”
“Is that what I think it is?”
“What’s it doing out here?”
“Ron, I think the big question is: why was it moving?”
There was silence. I could picture them all, standing over the rogue cantaloupe, looking around for clues to where it came from. And I could picture one of them spotting our hiding place. Then another. Then another. Five heads turning together toward the only possibility.
Crunch. Crunch. Five sets of footsteps were headed right for us. And then—
Fleedle-fleedle, fleedle-fleedle, fleedle-fleedle!
The crunching stopped.
“Who leaves their phone on the factory-default ringer?” said the nice officer.
“It’s my work phone, Carla,” snapped Ron. The ringing cut off. “Yes? It is. . . . Huh, okay. . . . What? Are you certain? That’s a serious setback. . . . Yes, we’ll be right there, but we found a clue in the woods not far from the main field. . . . A cantaloupe. . . . I’m sorry, what? . . . Really? . . . I see. We’ll be there in five minutes.”
Ron closed his phone.
“Who was that?” someone asked.
“The director, Mr. Haggis. He just heard from the missing kid’s father. Still can’t make it out here, something about car trouble and some sort of baking emergency. But the big news is he also heard from the search and rescue canine unit. They missed the ferry. Won’t be here until later this evening.”
“That’s a serious setback.”
“Literally what I just said. We need to regroup and come up with a new strategy for today.”
“But what about this?”
“Mr. Haggis said it was nothing. He says the cantaloupes are an old camp tradition. All the kids bring them and leave them lying around, hoping to get the attention of some pretend moose. He said he confiscated most of them since they were becoming a health and safety hazard, but obviously someone slipped this by him and hid it out here.”
“And it was moving because . . . ?”
“Probably a mouse or squirrel trying to eat it.”
“Hmm, maybe.”
“Hey, is this a first for anyone else? Standing around in the woods arguing over a cantaloupe?”
“Yup.”
“Same.”
“Beats paperwork, though.”
“True. I’ll take cantaloupe detecting any day.”
“Okay, enough,” said Ron, sounding fed up. “Let’s head back. We’ve got a missing child to recover. And not much time to do it.”
The footsteps moved away, and the woods grew still again. But Charlene and I waited a long, long time in our cave, pressed against the walls, the smell of cantaloupe and tree roots and fear wrapping around us, before we dared to creep out again, like stiff and very relieved bear cubs, into the light.
Twenty-Seven
Abby
A steady wind was puffing over the island from the sea, disrupting the popcorn clouds and making the leaves of the Flappy Trees whisper over our heads. Another elevator hidden near the stump took the four of us back down to the Island Underneath, and we returned to the room with the Winter Palace door to change into our regular clothes. Afterward, we headed to the galley for lunch.
The galley was set on a rope-and-plank balcony overlooking the glass wall, and Joe was so busy shouting about all the fish and whales and turtles, he barely got to eat anything.
“We’ve spent the better part of the day just getting prepared and checking one palace,” said Antonia, as I devoured the best grilled cheese sandwich I’d ever had in my entire life. “We’ll have to push to get the other two in.”
“Definitely,” Helene said. “Though we did get the biggest location out of the way first.”
“Where are we going next?” I asked, wiping my mouth.
“A classic, but a bit of a tricky one, seeing as the royal family still lives there. We’re headed to Buckingham Palace.”
The room housing the door to Buckingham Palace was a little farther down the hall where Joe and I had practiced our bowing and curtsying. Inside, it had the same basic setup, and I was surprised to discover the clothes along this wall were super similar to the ones we’d gotten to choose from before.
“Why aren’t the clothes different?” I asked. “I thought there’d be more variety or something.”
“History,” called Helene from behind a curtain. “Older outfits provide the best cover, and there was remarkable consistency in the courtly fashions of the early and mid-eighteenth century. But we don’t all have to dress like the courtiers did.”
She reappeared, dressed in a simple dark gray dress with poofy skirts, a white apron, a high collar, and long sleeves. A round cap covered most of her head, and she’d perched a pair of tiny spectacles on the end of her nose. The ring of keys matched her outfit perfectly. “I’m a housekeeper, see?” she said. “And look, Mama makes a wonderful old sea dog.”
Antonia had drawn back her curtain. She was wearing a movie-quality pirate captain’s outfit, complete with jacket, hat, boots, and belt. “This is the only time you are ever allowed to call me an old anything,” she said, lifting her eye patch and frowning at her daughter.
Joe dressed himself in a blue-and-white striped tunic with braided edges and gold buttons, a black hat with three corners, ivory silk stockings, a dark blue coat with tails, and a silver cane. He looked like a fancy version of the guy on the Quaker Oats box.
After a long search that had Antonia tapping her pirate boot impatiently, I put together an outfit that was even pret
tier than the last one. The hips on this dress were only a few feet wide, thank goodness, but it did have a big bustley underskirt, so the shining silver fabric poured around me as I walked. I chose heeled silver slippers to go with it, a long necklace of blue stones that honestly might have been actual sapphires, and an elegant dark brown wig with a silver coronet perched on top.
“Everybody ready?” asked Helene. We all nodded. I adjusted my coronet. “Good. Now, please remember that this isn’t a museum like the Winter Palace. This is a living, working building, so we’ll have to be extra careful as we search. No talking to palace workers or tourists, you two.” She pointed at me and Joe. “And no wandering off and getting lost. Remember your palace protocol, and we should all be fine. Oh, and since the day is getting on, I’m setting a two-hour time limit. We’re leaving after that, no matter what.”
Helene brought out her ring of keys again and opened the lock, which was decorated this time with roses. There was the usual gap of darkness after we shut the door, and then Antonia was pushing open the side of a massive china hutch and we stepped out into some sort of storeroom. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
I did a little twirl, examining my gorgeous new outfit in the light. Helene looked down her glasses at me. “We need seriousness from everyone here, please, Abby,” she said. “This is not a dress-up game.”
We trooped after her out of the storeroom, along a plain hallway, up a set of concrete stairs, then through a door into what looked to be the public-facing, historical part of the palace. There were velvet ropes again, and informational signs, and a security guard.
The guard came right up to us.
“Morning, ma’am,” she said, bowing to our leader. “How’s the historical housekeeping today?”
Helene put her hands on her hips. “It’s always difficult on rainy days,” she replied, in a pitch-perfect British accent. She nodded at the window across the hall, which was being lashed with rain as dark clouds bumped each other across the sky. “Everyone gets a little housebound. It’s all I can do to keep the family from declaring an absolute monarchy again!”
The guard laughed, and we moved on, smiling and nodding.
“They know who you are here?” Joe asked in a whisper as Antonia steered us past another velvet rope into a room full of squashy chairs and sofas. A knot of passing tourists snapped photos of us.
“I make a brief appearance once a week,” Helene answered, lining us up beside a marble fireplace. “As far as most of these people know, I really do work here as a historical reenactor.” She arranged us around the fireplace like we were deep in conversation, motioned us to act like we were talking, and started searching the chairs and sofas, pretending to be fussing over the state of the room. A small crowd gathered to watch, cell phones held up for videos.
And that was how we carried on, crossing the velvet ropes in room after room, miming theatrical conversations for the tourists while Helene pretended to clean and fuss and fluff pillows. Buckingham Palace wasn’t quite as fancy as our first stop in Russia, but it was cozy being inside with the rain sheeting down the windows, and it was nice being able to understand some of the reactions from the crowd, including one little girl who tugged her dad’s arm, pointed at me, and said, “Look, Daddy, it’s the Princess of England!”
She kept her eyes on me while her parents read the informational signs, and when they moved on she looked back over her shoulder and waved. I winked and waved back, and she looked so happy I forgot all about how much the shoes were pinching my feet and the crinkly dress was itching like crazy.
I lost track of time, and there were no wall clocks in the historical parts of the palace, but it must have been close to our two-hour time limit when it happened.
We were finishing up in our third royal bedroom. A tour group had just left, and Helene was herding us toward a door at the back when a family arrived with two wide-eyed little girls. I couldn’t resist the chance to be the “Princess of England” one more time, so I turned and waved. The girls gasped and waved back. One of them tugged on her mom’s sleeve, whispering excitedly. The mom saw me watching.
“She wants to know if you’re a real princess,” she called. Ooh, Americans! I could talk to these people. Antonia coughed meaningfully behind me, but I was too caught up in the moment to remember all her lectures.
“Of course I am,” I called. “I’m the Princess Abigail.” I gave a deep curtsy, my best yet. One of the girls clapped, but the other tugged at her dad’s sleeve this time, speaking urgently in his ear. Another tour group filtered into the room. I heard Joe shifting beside me.
“She, um, wants to know if she can grow up to be a princess too, someday,” said the dad. The mom smiled and quirked an eyebrow at me.
“Oh . . . ,” I said. Shoot. If only I had Maggie’s imagination, or the talent to make up a story on the spot like Antonia. An idea suddenly sparked in my brain, and I crossed the room to kneel right in front of the little girls, the velvet rope between us. “You don’t have to wait to grow up,” I said, giving them my very brightest smile. “Because you already are. A princess is who you are inside.”
“Really?” said the first little girl. Her eyes went wide, and she grabbed her sister by the hand and pulled her under the rope.
“Hey, wait!” I said.
The girls clambered onto the massive carved bed.
“Stop!” cried the mom. “Stop!”
I tried to go after them, but my shoes got caught on my dress as I stood and I fell spectacularly, taking the dad down with me.
“We’re the princess! We’re the princess!” sang the girls, holding hands, jumping up and down on the antique cushions and clearly having the time of their lives.
The dad and I staggered to our feet, but the whole velvet barrier was down and more kids were running excitedly into the room, climbing on furniture and touching everything.
Two palace monitors and the security guard we’d met earlier pushed their way in, ordering calm in loud voices. The guard took one look at my friends backed against the wall and gave Helene a scalding look. Antonia started forward to help restore order, but the guard called, “No! Please, just get out of the way,” and began escorting screamingly happy children off the royal bedspread.
If the look the security guard gave Helene was bad, the look Antonia gave me was devastating. Ugh. My stomach curled itself into a ball of molten acid. I hated being in trouble more than anything in the entire world.
Helene marched us out through the door at the back of the room, around a corner, and down a flight of stairs. Another security guard rushed past us, heading the way we’d come, loud voices squawking from his walkie-talkie.
No one said a word as Helene swept us along, navigating the complicated hallways of Buckingham Palace like she could do it in her sleep, until we were back in the storeroom where we’d started.
“That,” Antonia said, slamming the door closed behind us, “was a terrible mistake.” The fluorescent lights made everything look washed out, but the angry red in her cheeks was clear. “Do you have any explanation for why you felt the need to endanger our entire mission like that?”
“I’m so sorry. It was those little girls,” I said. “I just wanted to make their day, make them happy. I wanted to give them something to remember.”
“You’ve certainly done that!”
“Hey, she tried to do a nice thing,” said Joe softly.
“And that nice thing may have permanently damaged our relationship with this palace and our access to this city,” Helene replied, her voice clipped. “If they look into this and start asking questions about who we all are, there will be serious trouble the next time I show my face.” She clicked open the secret door in the hutch. “I’m extremely disappointed in you, Abigail. You know how important these loops are to us. You know we depend on access to these palaces for everything in our lives. We’ve put a great deal of faith and trust in you, and I believed you would show us the basic respect of following our instructions.
Clearly, I was wrong.”
And she turned her back on me and disappeared through the panel without another word.
Twenty-Eight
Abby
The island looked as gloomy as London when we got back. The clouds from that morning had rolled in, and thick, heavy rain was smashing down, soaking our clothes in an instant and making the stump dangerously slippery. A rogue gust knocked my wig into the grass, and I tripped twice going after it, miserable right down to my wet, aching toes.
Our group stayed silent as we made our way down to the Island Underneath and back to the Rose Door cabin, where Helene flung her housekeeper’s cap onto a chair with a squelch, open anger clear on her face, and disappeared behind a dressing curtain.
I wanted to melt into the floor. I felt completely horrible. Joe gave me a sympathetic smile from across the room as he pulled his curtain closed too, but Antonia claimed the only remaining alcove without a glance.
I was kicking off my sodden slippers when a voice fuzzed in over a speaker in the ceiling.
“Hello? Helene? Antonia? Are you there?”
“What is it, Cypher?” Antonia called from her alcove.
“We’ve got a serious problem,” Cypher said. My stomach seized up. Had the news about my mistake traveled that fast? Did everyone on the island already know?
“What kind of problem?” asked Helene.
“Security, I’m afraid. Florence is malfunctioning. That ship she was decoying traced her command codes back to us. They’re headed this way.”
There was a thud from Antonia’s dressing room. “There’s a ship heading here?” she called. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. And they’re ignoring all of Florence’s distraction and diversion signals.”
Helene swore. “We’ll be right there!” she yelled. Oof. There was no way this was helping her mood.
She reappeared wearing a zip-up hoodie and fashionable sweatpants. “I’m off,” she said. “The third palace will just have to wait until tomorrow. Mama, will you bring Joe to the control room when you’re both ready? His sonar expertise may be useful.”